


you know just where to find me

by loveleee



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:33:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveleee/pseuds/loveleee
Summary: The thing is: until Rebecca, Greg had never told a girl he loved her before.And if he’s honest with himself – which is kind of his thing lately – the reason it had flowed out of him so easily, first at the duck pond, and then at the airport, was that he had known she wouldn’t say it back.(Greg gets out of town, and learns how hard it is to grow up. Set post-2.04, "When Will Josh and His Friend Leave Me Alone?")





	1. Chapter 1

As it turns out, DUIs _do_ transfer from state to state, so Greg finds a room in an apartment near a shuttle stop to the business school campus. His roommate is a skinny white guy named David, and he looks so much like Hector that in his head (and one time, accidentally, out loud) Greg refers to him as White Hector.

David’s friendly enough, but he’s also a second year MBA student, so there’s no sense of “let’s figure this out together!” camaraderie in their relationship. There isn’t much of that from anyone. Greg hadn’t really stopped to think about how different grad school would be from undergrad – and while he wasn’t expecting to hang out in a dorm room smoking pot until 3 a.m. every night, he also wasn’t expecting to be surrounded by full-on, actual _adults_. People whose last job wasn’t in a bar. People who have husbands and wives and children. People who have lives.

So it takes a while, but eventually he finds _his_ people. Eduardo, who grew up about 30 minutes from campus and lives in his grandparents’ old place with his two brothers. Jenny, who’s only 25 but possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of classic film trivia, and wants to move back to Pittsburgh once she has her degree. Ben, who hails from Jolly Old England and says he’ll knock Greg’s teeth out if he ever uses the phrase “Jolly Old England” again.

He even meets up with Barry the actuary once a week, who turns out to be the sweetest, most supportive actuary Greg’s ever met in his life, as he tells Chris via text (along with a series of heart eyes emojis).

All in all, it’s a good life. He’s fitting in. Staying sober. Drama-free.

And then Rebecca calls.

It’s a Thursday night and he’s stretched out on the couch, slowly making his way through a reading for Managerial Economics, when his phone chimes out a ringtone he hasn’t heard in two months. _Hotline Bling._ She’d set that to her number on his phone during the sex cocoon phase, and they’d both thought it was hilarious at the time, though now it strikes Greg as more disturbingly prescient than anything else.

He almost doesn’t answer it. But he thinks of her face as she stood at the bottom of that airport escalator and watched him ascend, and a wave of feelings slams right into his gut (pretty much par for the course when it comes to him and Rebecca, honestly). His thumb swipes the screen open.

He plays it cool. “Hey, Bunch.”

“Greg! Hi.” She sounds surprised, like she didn’t think he’d answer. “Um, how are you? Sorry, am I calling you too late?”

He cranes his neck around to see the time on the microwave in the kitchen. “It’s eight thirty.”

“Right, it’s five thirty here, I totally get time zones. Anyway – I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Sure. Shoot.”

“Do you remember the name of that Mexican place we ate that one time, with the pomegranates? And that soup that looked like a yin yang?”

Greg frowns, thinking. They’d barely ventured out in public when they were together, preferring to order in delivery between marathon sex sessions. “You mean Babita?”

“Oh my god, _yes_. Thank you. I tried to find it on Yelp but there are like, 100 pages of results when you search for Mexican food in West Covina. And half of it’s not even _really_ Mexican—”

“No problem.” He knows he should end it there – hang up, get back to reading, and never, ever think about Rebecca Bunch again – but he can’t stop himself. “Babita. That’s a little fancier than your standard taco shack.”

“Yeah, it’s for Heather’s birthday next week. I want to treat her since she’s been such a good friend since – um, just recently. She’s really great.”

 _Since you left._ That’s what she meant to say. The wave of feelings sloshes around in his stomach again, like water in a wave pool. “That’s really nice of you. I hope she enjoys it.”

“Thanks. Me too.” Rebecca clears her throat. “Well, that was definitely all I wanted to know, so…bye!”

“Bye,” he says, but the call’s already dead.

\---

The thing is: until Rebecca, Greg had never told a girl he loved her before.

And if he’s honest with himself – which is kind of his thing lately – the reason it had flowed out of him so easily, first at the duck pond, and then at the airport, was that he had _known_ she wouldn’t say it back.

Three days after leaving West Covina, he’d received an email from Hector with the subject line “Bullet dodged!!!!!!!!!!!!” and a link to a YouTube video. He’d closed the browser as soon as the image had loaded – Rebecca, wrapped in some kind of yellow blanket.

To Greg, it didn’t feel like he’d dodged a bullet. It felt more like the bullet had nicked him, and left an open, bleeding wound.

_\---_

_YOU USED TO CALL ME ON MY CELL PHONE  
LATE NIGHT WHEN YOU NEED MY_

Greg fumbles for the phone through a haze of sleep. “Hello?”

“Hi! Oh my god, did I wake you? I’m so sorry, I –”

“No, it’s – Rebecca? It’s fine.” He shouldn’t be napping at 9 in the evening anyway, so really, it’s for the best. “What do you need?”

“Nothing, I just – I wanted to tell you that Heather liked the restaurant.”

“Heather liked the restaurant.” He plays the words over in his head for some semblance of meaning as he forces himself to sit upright on the sofa. Nope, nothing.

“Yeah, remember, Babita? Pomegranates? Yin yang soup?”

“ _Right_ , for her birthday.” A week ago, when she’d called. “That’s…great?”

“It was, except they didn’t have the pomegranates. Apparently it’s a seasonal dish. They should really put that on their website. I left them a comment card.”

“Mmm.”

“I could tell she really liked it, though, because she practically licked her plate clean, and she said ‘This is good.’”

Greg smiles a little. Sounds like Heather.

“So I wanted to tell you that, and say thank you, for reminding me of the name and for introducing me to it in the first place.”

“Glad I could help.”

The conversation feels like it’s run its course, but this time, Rebecca doesn’t hang up. And neither does he.

“Can I tell you something?” she finally says.

“That depends,” he says, though he’s not sure on what.

“Look, I just – I didn’t really need to tell you that. Obviously,” she laughs slightly. “I just wanted to talk to you again.” Her voice wavers when she says, “I miss you.”

After months of silence, it’s everything he’s been dreading and everything he’s been secretly hoping for all at once. Everything he knows is bad and wrong and an inevitable disaster; everything he can’t help but want anyway. “I miss you, too,” he says carefully.

“You do?” Her voice sounds so small, so unsure, that his chest aches.

“Of course I do,” he says. “But Rebecca, listen—”

“I’ve never been to Georgia before,” Rebecca interrupts, and Greg can picture the look on her face so perfectly in that moment, the manic gleam in her eye as a plan takes shape. A complete 180 in two seconds flat – that was Rebecca. “We have off for Veterans Day soon, I could come out for the long weekend—”

“Rebecca.”

“Ooh, and have you ever been to Savannah? I’ve heard it’s beautiful, we could make it a little roadtrip—”

“ _Rebecca_ ,” he says, and she finally stops, and he fucking hates this, he really does. “Stop. You can’t come out here.”

There’s a heavy pause. “We could still be friends, Greg.”

“That’s not how it works for you and me. You know that.” He waits, but she doesn’t answer. “I’m gonna go, okay?”

“I – yeah. Okay. Bye, Greg.”

“Goodbye.” He ends the call and drops the phone back onto the coffee table, rubbing his palms over his face.

 

 

 

Eduardo extends an open invitation to his family’s Thanksgiving for anyone who’s staying in town, and Greg wrestles with whether to take him up on it. A round-trip ticket to LA isn’t too bad, about $400, but he’s got a paper due the week after the holiday and if he’s in West Covina at least half of his free time will be spent drinking boba with Chan and half-assing a series of workouts with WhiJo. He calls his dad.

“No problem,” Marco says immediately.

“Oh.” It’s not a surprise, exactly, but Greg can’t deny that it stings a bit that his father doesn’t care if he’s around for the one holiday that’s supposed to be about family, and nothing else.

“Yeah, I’ve got three different women already fighting over who gets to feed me that day. I don’t need you cramping my style.” Greg’s pretty sure he can actually _hear_ his father’s lecherous grin.

“Good luck with that,” he says. “I’ll definitely be there for Christmas, though, okay?”

“Eh, sure you will.”

“I will. C’mon, what am I gonna do here? The weather’s freezing, it’ll be like, 60 degrees.”

Chan texts him the next day – _u coming home 4 tgiving???_ – and he writes back _No, flight’s too expensive._

\---

Eduardo’s family is big and noisy and warm, and the entire day is so overwhelmingly out of the realm of Greg’s own past Thanksgivings that midway through dinner he excuses himself to the bathroom just so he can catch his breath.

It’s in the bathroom that he remembers how he spent last Thanksgiving going through the worst emotional whiplash of his life. Quitting Home Base on a high, rushing his dad to the hospital, begging for his old job again less than a day after he’d left it…he’d considered it rock bottom at the time, which was hilarious given what came next.

And he’d ended the day with Rebecca. Tacos and whiskey on her couch. That weird dog show. She’d fallen asleep with her head on a pillow in his lap.

But here he is now, exactly where one year ago he thought he’d never be: a two-story house in the suburbs of Atlanta, eating turkey with his grad school friend’s large Salvadoran family. Earning his MBA at Emory. He hasn’t heard a peep from Rebecca since she called him nearly a month ago. No calls, no texts, no emails, no Snapchats (which he still hadn’t had the heart to delete off his phone, even though she was the one to install it).

He should be happy about that. Mostly, he is. But there’s a part of him – a petty, damaged little part – that can’t help but think that if she really cared as much as she claimed, she’d already have flown across the country and shown up on his doorstep, the way she had for Josh.

A knock on the door interrupts his pity party of one, and he opens it. It’s Elena, one of Eduardo’s cousins. One of Eduardo’s pretty cousins – of which there were a few – and single, as he’d learned when he’d mentioned to her that he was new in town.

“Hey!” she says brightly, touching his elbow with one hand. “Are you having a nice time?”

“Oh, yeah, an amazing time,” he says, and she really is pretty: long dark hair, big dark eyes, full red lips. “Your family’s so welcoming.”

Elena smiles. “We know how to have a good time,” she says, and touches his arm again before she steps past him into the bathroom and shuts the door.

\---

It’s true. Elena knows how to have a good time. They have three good times that night, in fact.

 

 

 

Per tradition, White Josh sends out the Secret Santa assignments over email on December 1st.

This year he gets Hector. Possibly random, but probably intentional, as WhiJo had always claimed to make the assignments blindly but somehow never matched Greg up with whomever’s car he’d dented most recently.

Regardless of what his dad wants, Greg decides it’s as good a reason as any to book a flight home for Christmas.

He’s on edge for the entire week leading up to his trip, to the point that Jenny offers him a few Xanax one afternoon while they’re studying together in a coffee shop. She frowns when he starts to laugh.

“The flight is the least of my worries,” he tells her.

“Oh. Family stuff?” She slips the pills back into her backpack. “I get that. My dad’s side of the family is all Jehovah’s witness.”

“Not…exactly.” Greg shrugs. “All my friends still live there. And my ex. Well – I don’t know that I’d call her an ex, exactly, and there are two of them, kind of. You know what? Nevermind. It’s a long and sordid story.”

“Your ex,” Jenny repeats lightly.

“Yeah, she’s…hard to describe.” And up until this moment, he’d completely avoided mentioning her existence among his new friends. “I mean, she’s great. We just weren’t great…together.”

“What happened?”

Greg laughs. “I genuinely do not have time to get into it. But thank you for your offer of drugs.”

Jenny rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. “That’s the last time I do anything nice for you.”

\---

WhiJo picks him up from the airport, all blinding white smiles and sleeveless shirts.

“Hey buddy!” He pulls Greg in for a hug. “How you been? How’s Atlanta?”

“It’s great. It’s exactly what you’d expect from watching the Real Housewives.”

“Ah, sorry, man. I haven’t seen that show. You’ll have to tell me more about it on the drive. Here, let me grab your bag.”

Greg bites back a smile. For better or for worse, he’s home.

\---

“Thanks again for letting me crash here,” Greg says, dropping his bag onto the seat of the weight machine. The second bedroom in WhiJo’s apartment typically functioned as a home gym, but he’d graciously offered to rearrange the equipment to accommodate a blow-up mattress for Greg’s visit.

“No. Problem.” WhiJo claps his hands together. “Alright, man. Make yourself at home, there’s pizza in the fridge, I’m heading out.”

Greg raises his eyebrows. “Oh.”

“Yeaaah, Darryl’s kid has her holiday recital tonight. It’s gonna be adorable.” He claps Greg on the back. “It’s great to have you back, though. I’ll see you later tonight.”

So Greg eats some leftover pizza, and catches the last 20 minutes of _Back to the Future II_ on TBS, and texts Hector and Chan to see if they want to hang out. They’ve both got family stuff going on. He makes it through the first 20 minutes of _Back to the Future III_ , and falls asleep on the couch.

Hey, West Covina.

\---

His dad’s new apartment is small and messy, crammed full of their old furniture and knick-knacks. It’s like a shrunken down version of their house: same lumpy floral couch, same _Serrano’s_ sign hung on the wall, same empty beer cans scattered on the coffee table.

“I thought you were cutting back,” Greg says, picking up the cans one by one.

“I am! I only drink _two_ when I’m watching Jeopardy.” Marco kicks his feet up onto the coffee table. “Are you going to see your mother while you’re here?”

Greg sighs. “I should. I’ll call her tomorrow.”

“What about Rebecca? You gonna see her?”

He stiffens. “I don’t know.”

“You shouldn’t.”

For having only met her twice, his father had a serious vendetta against Rebecca. “Why do you care?”

“Why do I care,” Marco repeats. “Because I don’t want this two-week vacation turning into the next 50 years of your life.”

“What, like it did with yours?” Greg throws the beer cans into the recycling bin, but the sound they make isn’t nearly as satisfying as if they were glass bottles. “Don’t worry, Dad. I actually know how to quit my vices, unlike you.”

“Don’t give me that shit. I’m on my way out. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you.”

“Maybe I’d have one behind me, too, if I hadn’t spent half of it making sure you didn’t accidentally kill yourself.”

He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth, but Marco says nothing, just turns on the television.

“Dad, I’m sorry. Being here is really messing with my head.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious.” No response. “Dad, will you at least look at me?”

Marco turns his head towards his son. “I’m lookin’ at you, Greg,” he says. “And I’m worried.”

\---

By the time he finally meets up with the guys at Home Base that evening, Greg’s one thousand percent sure coming back to this hellhole of a town was a mistake. And he lets them know it.

His apartment in Atlanta is way nicer than anything you could get in West Covina for the same price. (True.) The women are hotter. (Debatable.) The tacos are better. (Shameless, bald-faced lie.)

Eventually White Josh gets up to greet a friend he recognizes from the gym, and Hector steps outside to take a call from his mom, leaving Greg alone with Chan. And to his credit, his oldest friend doesn’t waste a second before calling him out on his shit.

“Dude. What is your problem?”

Greg takes a swig of Coke. It’s his third, and the sugar is starting to make him antsy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have a problem. My life is great.”

“Yeah, you’ve spent the last two hours talking about how great it is,” Josh says. “You’re kind of being a huge dick.”

“Sorry, am I supposed to act like I’m not thrilled that I finally escaped this shithole?”

“Some of us happen to _like_ this shithole.” Josh pushes his chair back from the table. “And some of us were actually _really excited_ that _you_ were coming back to this shithole.” He stands up. “I guess us was wrong.”

Greg sighs. Of all the matches that could have caught fire and burned the bridge between the two of them, this was by far the stupidest, and completely his fault. “Josh, wait.”

“I’m done, dude.”

“Josh, I’m sorry. Sit down. Please?”

Josh frowns, his eyes shifting between Greg and the door, but he finally drops back into his chair, arms crossed over his chest.

“You’re right.” Greg shakes his head slowly. “Things are rough with my dad, and there’s just something about being here that makes me…I don’t know, insecure? Like I have to prove that I made the right choice?”

“You don’t have to prove anything,” Josh says, softening a little. “We get it.”

“Do you, though? You’re all so happy here. But I walk down East Cameron and it’s like a record in my head is playing a greatest hits album of literally every failure I’ve ever had.”

“Greg. Come on. You’ve known me since kindergarten. You think I’m really that happy-go-lucky all the time?” Josh leans forward. “The last couple of months have been hard, man. Breaking up with Valencia…the weird stuff with Rebecca…you’re not the only one who feels like a failure.” He glances at White Josh, who’s still engrossed in conversation at another table. “Especially with WhiJo and Darryl being so disgustingly _cute_ all the time.”

“Oh my god, right?” Greg leans in, lowering his voice. “That Instagram pic with them and his daughter in her little Christmas outfit? I wanted to blow my brains out.”

“They’re so _right_ for each other,” Josh grimaces.

Greg sighs. “I really am sorry. For taking it out on you, and for whatever role I played in all the…weird stuff.”

“It’s cool, man. And…same, as far as the weird stuff goes.”

Greg stares down into his nearly empty drink, swirling the ice around a little. “How is Rebecca, anyway?”

Josh shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really hang out with her anymore.”

“Really?” On the plane ride to California he’d daydreamed at least four scenarios where Josh told him they were living together again. God, he was pathetic.

“Yeah. She got…a little crazy right around when you left.” Josh looks thoughtful. “Wait. Do you think it’s _because_ you left?”

Greg makes a face. “No. I didn’t even hear from her for months. Besides, you’re the one she really liked.”

“Well, now she’s practically best friends with Valencia, so that is _definitely_ not the case anymore.”

Greg nearly spits out his Coke. “What?”

“They hang out all the time. I just saw them at the movies the other day. Valencia was eating _popcorn._ I think it had _butter_ on it.”

“Bizarre,” Greg murmurs.

“That’s just Rebecca, you know? She brings out the weird in people.” Josh smiles. “Dude, I’m so glad you’re back, even if it’s temporary. I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Greg says, and he really, truly means it.

\---

On Christmas Eve Greg visits his mom and her husband and kids, and it’s nice. He spends Christmas morning with his dad, and it’s strained, but when they’re sitting on the couch watching _A Christmas Story_ for the millionth time Marco says out of nowhere “I love you, kid,” and pats him on the knee.

The Chans invite him over for Christmas dinner, and he packs away what must be a gallon of beef stew while Jayma and her husband gush about their recent honeymoon in Thailand. After dinner Josh drives them both back over to WhiJo’s place to exchange the Secret Santa gifts. Hector’s pumped about the special edition Skyrim game that Greg bought him, and WhiJo gives Greg the _Mad Men_ series box set on Blu-ray.

“I was just thinking I needed more existential angst in my life,” he says, delighted.

All in all it’s a pretty great holiday. Just when he’s about to drift off to sleep, belly full of meat and cookies and hot apple cider, his phone buzzes.

 **Rebecca Bunch:** hey are you in town?

Greg sits up and stares at the text for so long that his phone goes to sleep. He swipes the screen open again, but before he can type in a reply, it buzzes again.

 **Heather Davis:** ignore that

 **Heather Davis:** i told her not to text u

 **Heather Davis:** bye

Greg checks the time. 12:14 a.m. _What?_

 **Rebecca Bunch:** Hairy is being dob

 **Rebecca Bunch:** *Hairy

 **Rebecca Bunch:** *Heather

 **Rebecca Bunch:** *dumb

 **Heather Davis:** im not dumb your just drunk

Greg checks to see if it’s a group text, but – nope. They’re just conversing with each other via his phone, somehow.

 **Heather Davis:** *you’re

 **Heather Davis:** omg rebecca stop correcting my GRAMMAR

 **Heather Davis:** sorry greg hope u had a nice christmas bye

He waits a few minutes, eyes trained on the blue-lit screen, but nothing else comes through. He sets the phone down and lays on his back, staring at the ceiling.

He’s not going to make it out of here without seeing Rebecca.


	2. Chapter 2

Greg wakes up and checks his phone. No new messages.

He opens up the texts from last night. _hey are you in town?_ He stares at the little text bubble for so long that the individual words cease to have meaning.

What if the message from Heather hadn’t come through right away? Would he have replied? Should he reply now? What would he even say?

_No_ would be an obvious lie, since she clearly wouldn’t have texted him that without knowing he was in West Covina. But _Yes_ would suggest he wanted to see her.

_Do I want to see Rebecca?_

A light tap on the door jolts him out of his text message crisis spiral. “Yo,” WhiJo says, poking his head in. “I’m going for a run, you in?”

“Damnit, I forgot my running shoes in Atlanta,” Greg lies. He hasn’t owned a pair of running shoes since high school.

“Ah, bummer,” says WhiJo, appearing genuinely distressed. “I’m keeping it light today, probably just five or six miles, so you want to get breakfast after?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally.”

“Awesome. See you soon.”

“Sounds great.”

Greg flops back down on the air mattress, phone still clutched in his hand, Rebecca’s face still featured in close-up on the movie screen in his mind.

He’s so screwed.

\---

They go to the diner on East Cameron, and as Greg follows WhiJo in through the doorway, his heart jumps into his throat. Yup, definitely screwed.

Heather’s seated in a booth by the windows, hunched over a plate of something that was once probably recognizable as blueberry waffles. Valencia sits beside her, the half-eaten bagel in her hand enough to make Greg wonder if he’s dreaming.

And the head of wavy brown hair across the table from them? It can only belong to Rebecca.

Heather notices them first, and it’s obvious when she does, as her eyes grow comically large. Before Greg can stop him, WhiJo strolls over, hands in the pockets of his board shorts.

“Ladies. Good morning.”

“Hey,” says Heather.

Valencia scrunches her face up into a fake smile. “Hiiii.”

“White Josh! Hi. How was your – oh. Oh my god, Greg.” Rebecca freezes, gazing up at him. “Um – wow, oh my god! I can’t believe you’re here, and we’re here, and – oh my gosh, how, how _are_ you?”

Rebecca looks great. Well – not _great_. A little worse for the wear, honestly, and the pile of potatoes and eggs in front of her suggests a hangover. Her smile looks forced. Her hair appears unwashed. She’s wearing sweatpants.

Even so: he’s aching to touch her.

“I’m alright,” he says.

“Someone else joining you?” WhiJo says loudly, nodding towards Rebecca’s plate, and she snaps her eyes away from Greg, narrowing them as she settles her gaze on White Josh.

“No,” she says.

“Oh.” He shrugs. “Well, nice seeing you.”

“I’ll – catch up with you later,” Greg says, and follows WhiJo to a table at the opposite side of the restaurant. “That was judgy,” he mutters, sliding into the cracked pleather seat.

WhiJo waves him off. “It’s a joke. It’s sort of our thing.”

Greg risks a look behind him; Rebecca’s still shooting daggers in their direction, though in fairness, that could be directed at either one of them. “Does Rebecca know that?”

“She calls me _chiphunk_.”

Greg laughs. “Oh yeah!”

“You knew?” WhiJo shakes his head in disgust.

“C’mon, it’s clever.”

Greg glances back across the room again, meeting Rebecca’s eyes for a fleeting moment before they both turn away. WhiJo sighs. “Dude, don’t tell me you’re going there again.”

“What? No.” Greg flips open a plastic-coated menu. “Rebecca and I are ancient history. Medieval. We’re _pre_ historic.”

WhiJo just raises an eyebrow, shifting his attention to his own menu. “So what are you doing for the rest of your visit?”

Greg leans back in his chair, forgetting it’s a booth, _not_ a chair, and knocks his head on the wood paneling along the top of the seat. “Ow. Uh – I don’t know. Maybe a beach day?”

“You hate the beach.”

“I know, but I also kind of miss complaining about the sand _more_?”

\---

Greg feels an odd mix of relief and disappointment when they stand up to leave and see a family of four now occupying the booth where Rebecca and her friends had been seated. It turns into an even odder mix of excitement and alarm when sixty seconds later they find Rebecca sitting on the hood of WhiJo’s car in the parking lot.

“Hey!” she chirps, sliding back down to the pavement. “How was your breakfast? Great, right? It’s like, _so crazy_ that we ran into each other here.”

“At one of the only two diners in town? Yeah, so crazy,” WhiJo says, unlocking the car with an emphatic click of the button. “Nice seeing you, Rebecca.”

“Greg,” she says, just to him, her voice softer. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

“Can’t,” WhiJo interrupts. “I’ve got a client session in thirty, we gotta run.”

“I can drive you home,” Rebecca offers.

“Um,” Greg says. He can practically feel WhiJo’s laser-eyes burning a hole through his head, and it’s, well, irritating. Who does he think he is, anyway – Greg’s dad? Sober for five months, and they still think he has no self-control. It’s not like Greg’s going to get drunk on mimosas and fall into bed with her at eleven in the morning.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” he finally says, waving a hand at WhiJo, who shakes his head in response. “I’ll see you later.”

“Does White Josh hate me?” Rebecca asks vacantly as the man in question drives away.

Greg tilts his head, considering. “Well—”

“Rhetorical question. So – hi! How have you been? You look good.”

“I’ve _been_ good,” Greg replies, shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. “And same to you. Is your hair longer?”

She touches the ends self-consciously. “A little. I might grow it out.”

“Looks nice.”

“Thanks.” Her smile fades, becoming something more uncertain. “Look, I’m sorry about those texts Heather and I sent last night. I was drunk, and Darryl had mentioned the other day that you were staying at White Josh’s place and…you know.” She shrugs. “One thing leads to another.”

Greg nods. “It’s okay. It’s cool.”

“Cool.” Rebecca pauses, taking a breath. “So…would you maybe want to get dinner with me?”

His heart beats faster. “Rebecca, I’m going back to Atlanta in a week.” He shakes his head slightly. “Nothing’s changed.”

“I know that, I do,” she says, eyes wide. “I just want to talk. I feel like…I feel like we didn’t get closure. And it’s so important, you know? It’s like, all my therapist talks about. Closure, closure, closure.”

“I’m…not sure there’s much more to say.” _Shitshow, Rebecca,_ he wants to remind her.

She shifts towards him, just barely. “Please?”

And maybe it’s because they really didn’t get closure when he left. Maybe it’s because he’s itching to engage in some self-sabotage for the first time in months. Maybe it’s because the late-morning sunlight is hitting her face just so, and it reminds him of what it felt like to wake up beside her half-naked and warm and happy, but –

He says yes.

 

 

 

 

She picks him up at 7 p.m. on the dot the following evening, and they agree to go to a little Thai restaurant across town that neither has stepped foot in before. Neutral ground.

Rebecca hands back the drinks menu as soon as the waiter places it on the table, and orders two Thai iced teas. He knows she likes a glass of red when she’s eating out, and he isn’t sure how he feels about how quickly she’d turned it down.

“You don’t have to do that,” he says once the waiter has gone. “You can drink a glass of wine in front of me.”

“I’m driving,” she says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And I’m trying to drink less anyway. It’s one of my resolutions.”

“ _One_ of your resolutions?” he repeats. “Don’t tell me you’re going vegan again. Also, it’s…still December.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes, but not without a hint of a smile. “I’m not vegan, but I’m going to eat less meat. And exercise. In moderation. Moderation is key.”

“If you say so. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy, myself.”

“That’s definitely true,” she says, and from the way her eyes glaze over for a moment he just _knows_ she’s thinking about the first time they’d hooked up, those three days that bled together into a glorious, sweaty mess of sex and food and sex and sleep and sex. Greg shifts in his seat. His eyes probably look a little glazed over, too.

“So, closure,” he says loudly. “What’s that all about.”

Scanning the menu, Rebecca is silent for a moment before she snaps it shut and meets his eyes. “It means understanding what happened between us, and why, and how to move on from it.”

He hadn’t really expected a sincere answer, but that was Rebecca. Always surprising. “Okay.” He nods. “Let’s…close it up.”

“Okay.” Rebecca leans down to rummage around in her handbag, and reemerges with a sheet of paper in her hand. “One—”

“Wait, what?” Greg interrupts. “Your therapist gave you a list?”

“Sort of. I mean, not exactly. I googled it. Just – give it a chance.” She clears her throat. “Question one. Did you cheat?”

Greg stares at her, drumming his fingertips on the table, but Rebecca just stares back. Eventually he folds. “During our two-week, non-exclusive relationship? No, I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Okay. Good.” Her forehead creases into a frown as she scans the list. “Maybe that one didn’t really apply. Moving on. Question two: did you mean what you said?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“No, that’s – that’s the question.”

“I literally don’t know what it means.”

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “How’s this: you called our relationship a pile of shit. Did you mean _that_?”

“I don’t recall using that _exact_ wording.”

“The _exact_ wording doesn’t matter,” she huffs. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“Okay, fine. I meant everything I said.” He’d also said he loved her, but he’s not about to bring that up.

“Okay. That’s – okay.” Rebecca tosses her head slightly, fixing her gaze back on the paper. “Right. So question three—”

“Hang on.” Greg snatches the list out of her hand and meets her glare head-on in challenge. “I didn’t agree to an interrogation. I’m asking you some questions now.” He reads aloud, “Question three: do you still think of me?”

And it feels like a kick to the stomach when she says, simply, “Yes.”

He can’t meet her eyes. “I guess you kind of already said that,” he finally says, letting the paper fall to the table.

“Do you think about me?” she says.

The answer is yes. _Yes, of course, I think about you, Rebecca._ But he can’t _say_ that.

And – it’s hard to explain. It’s not like he has a Rebecca Bunch Thought of the Day calendar, turning a page every morning when he wakes up. It’s more like…getting a Words with Friends alert from Hector on his phone…or seeing a novelty balloon tied to a neighbor’s mailbox…or crossing the bridge near his house on the way to the grocery store…and feeling something warm and achy swell inside of him that will only go away with time, or distraction, or both.

“Sometimes,” is what he tells her.

“Sometimes,” she repeats under her breath. “Okay.” Abruptly she sits upright, a look of confusion crossing her face. “Wow, you know, it’s been like ten minutes since we put our drink order in. Where is the—”

“Hi, sorry, I’m right here,” the waiter interrupts, appearing from nowhere to deposit two iced teas before them. “I thought I should give you some space. It looked like you two were getting some closure,” he adds in a low voice.

“Seriously? Is this a _thing_?” Greg wonders aloud.

They order entrees, and Greg suggests Rebecca put her list of awful, vague questions away, and she does. She asks him about school, and he asks her about work, and incredibly enough, he almost forgets that the last ten minutes were the most awkward and painful ten minutes he’s experienced since he’d said goodbye to her at the airport.

She has a way of doing that: making him forget that the bad parts even happened, if only for a moment.

“So why did you want to go to business school, anyway?” Rebecca asks, swirling her straw around in her drink, milky tendrils mixing with the dark tea.

“Cuz I wanna be a _business, man,_ not a businessman.” Greg wiggles his hand in a sad approximation of a gang symbol.

“No, for real, though.”

Greg sighs. “You know my dad owned a restaurant.” Rebecca nods. “And it went out of business when I was like, sixteen. There was this crazy influx of chain restaurants all built near the mall, and people just stopped coming.”

She frowns. “That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. So I was sixteen and pissed off, and I decided _that_ was gonna be my mission. Bring back Serrano’s. But my dad said I’d have to go to business school first, so I could actually run the place better than he could. And…that’s pretty much the whole story.”

Rebecca’s looking at him in a way that can only be described as _soft_. “That’s really sweet, Greg.”

He makes a face. “Eh.”

“So is that still the plan?” She takes a sip of her drink. “When you graduate are you gonna come back and do it?”

It’s a question he’s asked himself almost daily since he first set foot on Emory’s campus. “Well, there are two things to consider. One, I truly do hate it here.”

“Sure.”

“And two, how do I put this – there’s a lot of alcohol in the restaurant industry.”

Rebecca wrinkles her nose up in confusion. God help him, it’s very cute. “So you hire a bartender. That’s like, Business 101, Greg.”

“No, I mean – restaurant staff drink. A _lot_. There’s a shift drink, and that turns into other drinks, and a lot of people drink through their shift anyway, and it’s just part of the culture.” He smiles, and hopes at least most of the bitterness isn’t shining through. “For most people it’s fine. But in retrospect, probably not a good culture for someone like me to grow up around.”

“I didn’t realize. I’m sorry,” she says, and genuinely looks it.

“Don’t be. I had fun. But now I have a year and a half to figure something else out, since owning a business with an entire room in the back full of booze is probably out of the running.”

“Well, if you change your mind – about both things – I can totally help you find a space.”

“Oh yeah, like you helped Valencia.” Greg narrows his eyes in exaggerated suspicion. “Which reminds me. Are you _seriously_ friends with Valencia now?”

Rebecca’s face brightens. “Yes, we are seriously friends! Valencia’s a sweetheart.”

“Valencia is many things, but she is not a sweetheart. Are you sure she’s not a robot clone of the real Valencia, or possessed or something? I did see her eating carbs this morning.”

“I am _sure_ she is neither of those things. And you can see for yourself when you come to our New Year’s Eve party.”

“Your New Year’s Eve party?” Greg raises an eyebrow.

“Yes! It’s going to be so fun.” Rebecca leans forward. “It’s also like a belated housewarming for me and Heather. You have to come.”

“Why do I feel like this party was just planned in the last five minutes?”

She glares at him. “Don’t flatter yourself. I was just waiting to invite you until I saw if you could still hang.”

Greg can’t help himself – he grins. “So I passed the test?”

Rebecca nods. “You passed the test.”

 

 

 

 

And against his better judgment, he goes to the party.

It’s awkward. Not the same kind of awkward as Rebecca’s first party when she moved to town – this one has seasonally appropriate decorations, and he’s reasonably confident no one under the age of 18 is present – but awkward nonetheless. For one thing, he’s sort of flying solo.

Chan had, not unreasonably, refused to attend on account of the two ex-girlfriends who would be present (though Greg had, not uncharitably, pointed out that two of _his_ ex-girlfriends were literally hosting the party). Hector was taping a special New Year’s Eve call-in episode of the podcast he made with his mom. WhiJo _was_ at the party – dragged along by Darryl – but his enormous pecs made him a prime conversational target for all the people planning to hit the gym on day one of 2017.

And while he only knows about half of the people there, all of _them_ seem to know the details of his not-long-but-very-sordid past with Rebecca, from Paula right on down to that afro guy from the grocery store (who had apparently connected with Rebecca through some Harvard alumni network a few months back).

After extricating himself from an extremely inappropriate conversation with the _other_ grocery store guy with the weird eyelid (seriously, who invited that guy?), Greg finds himself drawn to Heather, who’s leaning against the back wall of the apartment like an oasis of cool in a sea of weird.

“Hey,” she greets him, and he still can’t tell if she’s masking friendliness with disinterest, or masking bitterness with disinterest, or just genuinely disinterested in him. But he doesn’t really care.

“Hey.” He taps his red solo cup against hers. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good.” Heather shrugs. “I’m Miss Douche now.”

She says it like Greg should know what the hell she’s talking about, so he just says, “Oh, cool,” and moves on. “How’s living with Rebecca going?”

Heather looks thoughtful. “Well, she pays two-thirds of the rent, and has a cleaning lady come twice a month, and she’s only fallen asleep on the couch crying to _Love Actually_ like three times, so…” She shrugs again. “Really well, actually.”

“Nice.” Greg tips his cup towards her again. “I have a roommate too. His name’s David. He’s only fallen asleep crying to _Love Actually_ twice.”

Heather doesn’t laugh. Greg clears his throat. “No, he’s never done that.”

They’re both silent for a while. “Wow, so it’s been really great catching up with you, Greg,” Heather says. “But I think there’s like, an emergency with the ice—”

Greg steps away, raising his hands. “Say no more.”

“ _Oh._ Also. When you and Rebecca bang tonight, if you can keep your like, weird groans down to a normal level, that would be great. Our walls are kind of thin because a bunch of people got murdered here and they had to hollow them out in case there were any more hidden bodies.”

“Oh my god, this is _that_ house? Wait – no. What? Rebecca and I are not going to bang tonight.”

Now Heather laughs. And laughs. And keeps on laughing.

“Seriously, we’re just friends. If even that.”

She slaps him on the back. “Okay Greg. Happy New Year.”

\---

Greg plants himself in the kitchen near a veggie and hummus plate on the counter, and watches the party go on around him. It’s 11:35. He can hang out here until midnight, then get an Uber back to WhiJo’s place. Easy.

“Hello, Gregory.” Paula appears beside him, looking slightly flushed, a glass of white wine in her hand.

Aw, hell. “Hello, Paula.”

“So are you here to rip out Rebecca’s heart again?”

Greg pops a carrot into his mouth. “You’re not really one for small talk, huh.”

“I know what you’re doing,” she says calmly, and for the first time Greg wonders if Paula might actually be kind of…scary. “You’re thinking, _I’ll just dip my pen in the ol’ hometown well one more time._ But no, Greg.” She points a finger at him. “This well has run dry. It’s cried too many tears, and come too far, for you to go splashing around in there again.”

Greg swallows his carrot. “So in this analogy, Rebecca – I assume – is a weepy, dry hole in the ground, and I’m…completely lost. What?”

“You broke my best friend’s heart,” Paula says. “You need to let her go.”

“I _did._ I moved across the _country._ ”

“Then why are you here?”

“Rebecca invited me!”

“That’s right. Because she doesn’t know what’s good for her. Which means _you_ have to be the one to say no.”

“I’ve barely even talked to Rebecca tonight.”

Paula finishes her wine in a single gulp. “Keep it that way,” she says, and sashays off, her disco ball earrings twinkling as she goes.

“ _Dammit!_ Who ate all the carrots?”

Greg startles. Valencia’s beside him now, holding a celery stick between her fingertips with disdain.

“Uh, sorry. Guess it was me.”

“Oh. Hi, Greg. How’s Boston?”

“No, it’s the Harvard of the _South_ , not the actual – nevermind. It’s great. How are you doing?”

Valencia chomps down on the celery and shrugs. “Okay.”

Despite knowing each other since elementary school, Greg and Valencia had never really…connected. Nonetheless, he feels compelled to ask, “Just okay?”

She lets out a loud sigh. “I mean, it’s been hard, after the break up and all. My BMI’s been all over the place – fluctuating from an 18.9 to a 19.3, if you can believe it. But I’m teaching two extra bikram classes per week now which should help.” She eyes him suspiciously. “Don’t tell Rebecca any of that when you’re doing your little pillow talk thing together. She’s always on my ass about like, eating more donuts.”

“There is not going to be any pillow talk!” Greg exclaims, loud enough to turn a few heads.

“God, Greg,” Valencia snorts, biting into another celery stick. “You don’t have to yell.”

\---

He finds Rebecca in a corner of the living room, nodding her head aggressively in conversation with Darryl. When she sees him, her face lights up. “Greg!”

“Hey,” he says, flashing a quick wave at Darryl. “Fun party.”

“Can I get you anything? Coke? Ginger ale?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

Darryl drifts away, bopping his head in time with the music, and Rebecca and Greg watch as across the room he meets up with WhiJo, slipping his arm around his waist. “Aw. They’re cute,” she says.

“They really are. I can’t even say something snarky about them,” Greg says, and they smile at one another for a little too long.

“So, it’s weird,” he continues, turning his gaze back to their friends. “All your friends seem to think we’re going to sleep together tonight.”

“What?” Rebecca squeaks. “No way.”

“That’s what _I_ keep saying.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Totally.”

“We’re so over.”

“Right?”

“I mean, what are we, a bunch of horny monkeys?”

“Definitely not.”

“Like, you wouldn’t even _want_ to anymore.”

“Well,” Greg says, “I never said _that_.”

There is a long, loaded pause. Greg isn’t sure if he’s actually holding his breath, or if it just feels that way.

Rebecca looks up at him. “Greg, I—”

“TWENTY!”

Her eyes go wide. “Oh! It’s almost midnight!” She takes a few halting steps towards the coffee table, returning with two noisemakers in hand. “Here.”

“TWELVE!”

Greg laughs. “I hate these things.”

“TEN!”

Rebecca elbows him in the side. “Get in the spirit!”

“EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! FIVE!”

_Okay_ , Greg thinks.

“FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE!”

At midnight, he kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so much to everyone who left comments and kudos! <3 And apologies that this has taken me so long to update. I had a tough time deciding how much of season 2 to work into this...as you can see, I didn't end up doing much aside from "Valencia is friends with Rebecca now". But I might work other elements in as well - just on a different timeline since this doesn't match up very well. We'll see how it goes!
> 
> Rebecca's "closure" questions are from a Bustle article I found called "8 Painful Questions to Ask Your Exes".

**Author's Note:**

> My first Crazy Ex Girlfriend fic! Eep! Please let me know what you think.
> 
> P.S. I'm on tumblr: imreallyloveleee.


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